Kaiser Permanente Colorado doctors leaving 2 hospitals as Intermountain Health partnership winds down

Colorado s second-largest healthcare insurer is halfway through a shift that will move the Denver-area physicians it employs to different fitness systems hospitals changing their patients options for future therapeutic care Doctors employed by Kaiser Permanente Colorado who specialize in cardiology orthopedics and general surgery began leaving Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver and Good Samaritan Hospital in Lafayette in April Neurologists oncologists and obstetricians will follow between June and September Those physicians are relocating to St Anthony Hospital in Lakewood St Anthony North Hospital in Westminster and HCA HealthOne Rose and HCA HealthOne Presbyterian St Luke s both in Denver Last year Kaiser released new partnerships with CommonSpirit Robustness and HCA HealthOne It also added CommonSpirit s Longmont United Hospital and OrthoColorado Hospital in Lakewood to its arrangement but won t station its physicians at those two locations At the same time Kaiser started to wind down a partnership with three Intermountain Medical hospitals Previously doctors employed by Kaiser could see their hospitalized patients at Saint Joseph or Good Samaritan hospitals Lutheran Hospital in Wheat Ridge also was in-network but Kaiser physicians didn t work there Kaiser runs both an insurance company and clinics that care for its roughly customers statewide majority of of whom live in the Denver area It doesn t own hospitals in Colorado so it has a architecture of facilities where its patients can go for that level of care The doctors it employs work at a few of the in-network hospitals Part of the reason for the shift was so Kaiser could sell more traditional insurance plans where people can choose doctors the system employs or others in a broader organization mentioned Mike Ramseier president of Kaiser Foundation Robustness Plan of Colorado It also gave existing customers more choices and helped keep costs down he commented We can be way more flexible Ramseier mentioned The departures won t affect patients who aren t insured by Kaiser because those physicians rarely saw patients with other coverage noted Scott Peek president of Intermountain Physical condition s Front Range facilities including Saint Joseph Good Samaritan and Lutheran The Intermountain hospitals will remain in-network for Kaiser patients through the end of but patients planning a procedure should check with their insurance to decide where to go he announced We encourage them to call Kaiser to have the latest and greatest information he declared Patients pay a larger share of their hospital bills if they go to an out-of-network facility than if they stay in-network Emergency care is an exception federal and state law only allow insurers to charge the in-network rate regardless of where the sufferer has to go Kaiser s squad is reaching out to patients who have scheduled upcoming procedures to talk about their options though they expect most of patients will choose to follow their doctors and have their surgeries or births at the new locations Ramseier revealed So far the transition has been smooth he mentioned It s gone extremely well he announced Related Articles Denver Strength unveils plan for million coming from new sales tax this year Colorado s th measles matter proven in Denver people may have been exposed at Lakewood urgent care Colorado law that made possession of small amounts of fentanyl a felony didn t reduce overdose deaths analysis finds Hospital gun-violence prevention programs like Denver Strength s may be caught in Trump funding crossfire The HealthOne hospitals have enough beds available to handle additional patients from Kaiser and are hiring nurses and encouragement staff to take care of them announced Chad Christianson president and CEO of HCA HealthOne The two systems already worked together at HCA HealthOne Swedish in Englewood and Sky Ridge in Lone Tree and the services that are moving over are ones where HCA s two Denver hospitals excel he commented That s really strength on strength he stated St Anthony s North was already expanding so bringing in the Kaiser physicians made sense now revealed Ryan Tobin Denver region president for CommonSpirit Healthcare The main St Anthony s campus is also adding beds so it will have plenty of maximum for everyone he announced CommonSpirit also previously worked with Kaiser in southern Colorado Our job is to take care of the area he announced We re excited about the future Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get strength news sent straight to your inbox